This application makes reference to, incorporates the same herein, and claims all benefits accruing under 35 U.S.C. xc2xa7 119 from an application for PAGE PRINTER AND METHOD FOR CONTROLLING THEREOF earlier filed in the Korean Industrial Property Office on the 7th of May 1999 and there duly assigned Serial No. 16271/1999.
1. Technical Field
The present invention relates generally to a page printer, and control method thereof, capable of preventing printing paper from being wasted due to damaged data.
2. Related Art
Generally, printers are divided into a dot printer, a line printer, and a page printer according to a unit of printed data. In page printers, prior to performance of printing work by the printer engine, a printing image of one page is first selected, a sheet of printing paper is supplied as a printing command is received, and the selected one page is printed at that time. Printers using the electrophotographic method belong to this category of page printer.
Printing data that is created in an application program of a computer is printed in a unit of a page through the following procedure. When there is a printing request from an application program of a computer, a printer driver receives printing data to be printed, converts the printing data into a command language, for example, printer control language (PCL), and then transmits the converted command language corresponding to one page, to the printer. The page printer receives the converted command language through a video controller from the host computer, decodes the converted command language, and prints the decoded printing data through the printer engine.
The printer driver, as described previously, converts the printing data to the printing command language in a unit of a page, adds a form feed control character (in case of PCL, hexadecimal 0C) informing of the end of a page to end the converted printing data, and transmits it. Then, the video controller of the printer classifies the printing data transmitted from the host computer in a unit of a page according to the form feed control character added to the printing data, and then prints the classified one page of printing data on a printing page of one sheet.
Sometimes, a problem occurs in that the printing data is damaged due to an external cause, such as a problem in the transmission cable, and the damaged data is transmitted to the video controller.
Especially, when more than one character in the printing data converted into the printing command language are converted into a form feed control character, the video controller of the printer perceives the form feed control character of the converted printing data as the end of one page, and continues to supply printing paper, and thereby there occurs a problem in that damaged data is printed. As a result, printing paper is wasted.
Therefore, an object of the present invention is to provide a new page printer which can prevent printing paper from being wasted due to damaged data by performing a printing job until a total number of pages to be printed is the same as a counted number of form feed control characters.
A further object of the present invention is to provide a control method for a new page printer which can prevent printing paper from being wasted due to damaged data by performing a printing job until a total number of pages to be printed is the same as a counted number of form feed control character characters.
These and other objects of the present invention may be achieved by a page printer for receiving printing data, including a form feed control character and total number of pages of printing data, and printing the printing data through a printer engine, the page printer comprising: a printing data storing part for receiving and storing the printing data; a total page number storing part for storing total number of page of printing data; a counter for counting a number of form feed control characters; and a control part for controlling the printer engine to print the printing data when the number of form feed control characters counted is less than the total number of pages printed.
Alternatively, when the number of form feed control characters counted is greater than the total number of pages of printing data, the control part stores the input printing data and then resets the printing data storing part.
According to another aspect of the present invention, there is provided a method for controlling a page printer for receiving printing data, including a form feed control character and total number of pages of the printing data, and printing the printing data through a printer engine, the method comprising the steps of: receiving a total number of pages of the printing data; storing the total page number; counting a number of form feed control characters; and printing the printing data when the number of form feed control characters counted is less than the total number of pages printed.
Alternatively, when the number of form feed control characters counted is greater than the total number of pages of printing data, the input printing data is stored and then is reset.
To achieve these and other objects in accordance with the principles of the present invention, as embodied and broadly described, the present invention provides an image forming apparatus, comprising: a first memory receiving and storing print data; a second memory storing a total number of pages corresponding to the print data; a counter counting form feed control characters received; a printer engine conveying images onto recordable media, the images corresponding to the print data; and a controller controlling said printer engine to convey the images onto the recordable media when a total number of the counted form feed control characters is less than the total number of pages.
To achieve these and other objects in accordance with the principles of the present invention, as embodied and broadly described, the present invention provides a method of controlling an image forming apparatus, the method comprising: receiving and storing print data; receiving and storing a value corresponding to a total number of pages of print data; counting form feed control characters received; when a total number of the counted form feed control characters is less than the stored value, conveying images onto recordable media, the images corresponding to the print data.
To achieve these and other objects in accordance with the principles of the present invention, as embodied and broadly described, the present invention provides a page printer apparatus, comprising: a first memory receiving and storing print data; a second memory storing a total number of pages corresponding to the print data; a counter counting form feed control characters received; a printer engine conveying images onto recordable media, the images corresponding to the print data; and a controller controlling said printer engine to convey the images onto the recordable media when a total number of the counted form feed control characters is less than the total number of pages; said printer engine not conveying the images onto the recordable media when the total number of the counted form feed control characters is greater than the total number of pages.
The present invention is more specifically described in the following paragraphs by reference to the drawings attached only by way of example. Other advantages and features will become apparent from the following description and from the claims.